A new report of The Global Slavery Index has been published
listing out the worst places in the world for slavery. According to the report
India has the highest number of slaves throughout the world, while the West
African nation of Mauritania has the highest percentage, with four percent of its
own population enslaved. This report used not only the traditional definition of
slavery but redefined it to be "the possession and control of a person in
such a way as to significantly deprive that person of his or her individual
liberty, with the intent of exploiting that person through their use,
management, profit, transfer or disposal. Usually this exercise will be
achieved through means such as violence or threats of violence, deception
and/or coercion." The high numbers in India are said to be due to the
cultural “debt bondage” would is tied to their caste system. Many of the
reported cases in the Middle East and North Africa were due to trafficking of
women. The report concluded that many people are enslaved because of socially accepted
exploitation such as forced marriage, child labor, or exploitation of migrant
workers. So generally people are enslaved as means of some sort of labor around
the world.
This report has brought to our attention just how many
people around the world are being enslaved in one way or another. All of which
are violations of basic human rights, according to the UN’s Declaration of
Human Rights which states “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude;
slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms” and “No one
shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment”. This all coincides with our discussions on crime as well, because
human trafficking or corporations taking advantage of their workers are each
different forms of crime that we have discussed. The fact that the report has
an all-encompassing definition of what constitutes slavery also allows us to
see that while the numbers are astronomical not all of these people are enslaved
in an illegal way and that some are enslaved due to what these individual societies
see as deviant or not. For example since many of these cases are contributed to
child labor, we can see that while in our society that child labor is very much
looked down upon, around the world it is still very much a cultural norm. Most
importantly, this article brings forth the fact that as human beings we still
have a long way to go to raise the standards around the world to protect people’s
most basic rights.
Nicole Egna
10/18/13
2:40 pm
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